Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

For decades after the identification of the structure of DNA, scientists focused only on genes, the regions of the genome that contain codes for the production of proteins. Other regions that make up 98 percent of the human genome were dismissed as "junk," sequences that serve no purpose. But researchers have recently discovered variations and modulations in this junk DNA that are involved with a number of intractable diseases.



Junk DNA can play vital and unanticipated roles in the control o...